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....But the announcement was dismissed as a cynical PR move by the IWGB trade union, which is assisting Uber drivers in a legal tussle over their employment status. Uber is appealing against last year’s landmark tribunal ruling granting its drivers employed worker status, which confers rights such as sick pay and the minimum wage. ...
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....But the announcement was dismissed as a cynical PR move by the IWGB trade union, which is assisting Uber drivers in a legal tussle over their employment status. Uber is appealing against last year’s landmark tribunal ruling granting its drivers employed worker status, which confers rights such as sick pay and the minimum wage. ...

.... A swift legislative response to the Taylor review is now required to effect wholesale change that produces strong upward pressure on wages. A crucial test here will be to extend the protection of the national minimum wage to those who are wrongly labelled “self-employed”. ...

.... He has focused on dropping prices, boosting the quality of food ranges and improving customer service. Bryan Roberts, an analyst at TCC Global, said all the major supermarkets were trying to become more efficient as they juggled higher payroll costs following this year’s hike in the national minimum wage, and inflation linked to Brexit’s blow to sterling. ...

....The past decade has brought a recognition that government has more of a role in improving the lot of workers. However, with the welcome exception of George Osborne’s big minimum wage hikes, that consensus has done too little to deliver actual improvements. ...

....Cruddas was (and is) on the left of the party, but had a reputation for free thinking and building unexpected alliances. After working in Downing Street in the 90s, and helping introduce the minimum wage – one of Blair and Brown’s few alterations to the economic status quo – Cruddas had become frustrated by their refusal to confront corporate power. ...

....HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) would need additional resources, he said, to ensure that workers were paid the new living wage. Its workload would triple, with the proportion of the workforce covered by the minimum wage set to rise from 5% to 14% by 2020. ...

....“We have a clear and unwavering commitment for all trainees and employees to be treated and compensated fairly and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Our employees receive a competitive graduate salary that far exceeds national minimum wage levels. ...

....Michael Newman, an employment law specialist at law firm Leigh Day, said Capita was taking a chance by signing up unpaid trainees. “There could be an argument that this is training that falls outside national minimum wage legislation but I don’t think that would hold water,” Newman said. ...

....Sports Direct’s shares hit the £8 price target in February 2014. The shares have since collapsed below £3, in part because of reputational damage caused by a Guardian investigation that revealed workers at the retailer’s Derbyshire warehouse were being paid less than the minimum wage. ...

....Uber lost a case last year in an employment tribunal brought by two drivers who claimed they were not genuinely self-employed. In a damning verdict, the tribunal said the drivers should be guaranteed the minimum wage and other basic employment rights. ...

....Sir David Metcalf, director of labour market enforcement, who reports to both the home and business secretaries, added that he will also consult on increasing both the resources available to investigators and the fines levied on guilty firms, as he questioned whether official statistics were an “understatement of the real level of non-compliance”. The comments were part of Metcalf’s first major public intervention since being appointed to oversee a crackdown on exploitation in the workplace in January, giving him oversight on the policing of a range of offences from modern-day slavery to non-payment of the minimum wage. ...

.... US retailers are belatedly waking up to that threat as their shoppers are about five years behind that spending curve. But UK retail has its own problems, owing to the squeeze on profit margins created by the recent rise in business rates and the increase in the legal minimum wage for over-25s. ...

....The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said the “national living wage” (NLW) should rise by a maximum of 2. 7% in its response to the Low Pay Commission’s call for comments on minimum wage levels, which are due to be set in the autumn. ...

....• Rafael Behr agonises over the trade-off facing the gig economy, between having a flexible labour market and guaranteeing a minimum hourly income for people who work flexibly. The Taylor review posits that people in the gig economy who choose to work at off-peak times should not necessarily be entitled to the minimum wage. ...

....Instead he called for them to be treated as “dependent contractors”, with more employment rights. He also suggested a new minimum wage for people on zero-hours contracts, and giving people the right to request a fixed number of working hours, but even his modest proposals seem destined to be ignored. ...

.... And it’s for that reason that Taylor’s recommendations are no reassurance to zero-hours workers. One idea that Taylor suggests is that workers are paid on a piece-rate basis, which can be less than the minimum wage. ...

....The stake acquisition will fuel speculation that Sports Direct could pounce on Game with a takeover offer. Sports Direct, Britain’s second-biggest sports retailer, has been under fire over its working practices since a Guardian investigation revealed that it was in effect paying warehouse staff less than the minimum wage. ...

....Blue claims that during a night of heavy drinking in the Horse and Groom in Fitzrovia, central London, in January 2013 Ashley agreed to pay him £15m if Sports Direct’s shares doubled to £8. The shares did hit £8 but have since collapsed, in part because of reputational damage caused by a Guardian investigation that revealed the retailer was in effect paying staff in its warehouse less than the minimum wage. ...

....The Resolution Foundation is right: the most radical idea in the Taylor review had little to do with the “gig” economy. Rather, it was the proposal that overtime should be paid at a rate higher than the national minimum wage. ...

.... He reckons both work out at about £10 an hour but he’s only been on the drop rate for a short time. While this sounds a good rate of pay, well above the minimum wage, Biswas is a self-employed independent contractor so he doesn’t receive sick pay, holiday pay or anything towards the cost of maintaining or insuring his motorbike. ...

....The prime minister said it was important to make sure “all work is fair and decent”, speaking at the launch of a new report on modern working practices by Matthew Taylor, a former policy adviser to Tony Blair. She said the government would carefully study his recommendations, which include ensuring workers in the gig economy have sick and holiday pay, the possibility of a higher minimum wage for non-guaranteed hours and a new definition of “dependent contractors” to stop companies wrongly claiming their workers are self-employed. ...

. Uber is not morally acceptable, Labour’s shadow business secretary has said as a major review recommends that gig economy firms be allowed to pay less than the minimum wage in some circumstances. ...

.... But, echoing the prime minister, he will also warn against any new “national regulation” and say that employers already face high, non-wage costs that should not be increased. It is expected to recommend the government rewrites employment law so any self-employed worker who is under “control” and “supervision” should be given holiday pay, sick pay and, in most cases, receive the minimum wage. ...

. A Downing Street review into modern employment is to call on the government to improve the quality of work for millions of people earning the minimum wage after it found too many are stuck with few prospects and falling job satisfaction. ...

....He also called for a more immediate “emergency intervention” to guarantee labour rights, particularly a minimum income. Several high-profile cases involving firms such as Uber and CitySprint have seen staff argue that they should be classed as workers, an official classification that carries additional rights to independent contractors, including a minimum wage and holiday pay. ...

.... MPs heard that the British summer fruits association predicted prices could rise by up to 50% because of seasonal labour shortages – which would only get worse after Brexit. Tom Tugendhat, Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, said the seasonal workers picking fruit in Kent were highly skilled and paid well over the national minimum wage. ...

....Ashley is defending himself against allegations that during a “night of heavy drinking” in January 2013 he agreed to pay Blue £15m if Sports Direct’s shares doubled to £8. The shares did hit £8 but have since collapsed, in part because of reputational damage caused by a Guardian investigation that revealed the retailer was in effect paying staff in its warehouse less than the minimum wage. ...

....”. A spokesman for the Treasury said the government was already helping households, for example with the introduction last year of a higher minimum wage for workers over 25 known as the “national living wage”. ...

.... Ministers must stop holding down the pay of public sector workers, and give them their first proper pay rise in seven years. The minimum wage needs to rise faster, to reach £10 an hour as soon as possible. ...

....Political parties, thinktanks, trade unions, the Law Society, and others have all ventured opinions about the best way to tackle what appears to be the total absence of employment rights in the “gig economy”. Indeed, just yesterday I was on a panel to discuss a proposal by the Resolution Foundation to introduce a minimum wage for self-employed people in order to set “a legal wage floor for the gig economy”. ...

....Mike Ashley, the controversial billionaire founder of Sports Direct, allegedly secretly paid his former chief executive £1m-a-year out of his personal funds in order to keep down the pay of other staff. Ashley, who was exposed for paying warehouse staff effectively less than the minimum wage, is alleged to have paid former Sports Direct boss Dave Forsey £1m a year on top of his “official” £150,000 salary as “a side payment so as artificially to cap the wages of other staff”. ...

....Sports Direct’s shares hit the £8 price target in February 2014. The shares have since collapsed below £3, in part because of reputational damage caused by a Guardian investigation that revealed the retailer was in effect paying staff in its warehouse less than the minimum wage. ...

.... Like other gig-economy companies, such as the taxi-hailing app Uber, Deliveroo uses thousands of self-employed contractors rather than employees, a model saving millions of pounds in holiday pay, sick pay and tax. The workers have no right to the minimum wage. ...

....The economist, who sits on the Bank’s monetary policy committee that decides when interest rates will have to be raised to put a lid on inflation, said it is important to remember that rising prices have the biggest impact on the poorest. “It hits hardest those on the lowest incomes and those whose incomes are fixed in money terms, for example those on benefits or on amounts close to the minimum wage. ...

....The Doctors Laboratory, a company which provides pathology services to the NHS, has admitted that five cyclists, motorcyclists and van drivers carrying emergency blood supplies to hospitals and samples to laboratories, are not self-employed. The company now concedes that the couriers, who are on a variety of different contracts, are workers, an official employment classification which entitles them to rights including holiday pay and a minimum wage. ...

.... That kind of work has grown hand in hand with the rise of online shopping, and platforms such as the taxi-hailing app Uber and the takeaway delivery service Deliveroo. Most of those companies say they hire independent contractors, who miss out on rights such as the minimum wage and sick pay. ...

....My partner began a degree in PE and education but never completed it, partly because the course wasn’t right for him. After travelling abroad and doing a series of seemingly random jobs, he is back in the UK and working in an engineering job, which pays minimum wage, is very physically demanding and dangerous at times. ...

.... It broke Apple’s privacy rules by writing its own code. Its so-called self-employed drivers are offered car-leasing arrangements that tie them into onerous obligations; their complaints are poorly handled and many end up earning less than the minimum wage. ...

....Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said his organisation had long argued that, given limited resources, the government should focus its spending on where it was needed most. “As it stands, a family with a household income of nearly £200,000 will be eligible for the scheme, while another where, for example, one partner works 15 hours a week at the minimum wage in addition to volunteering, training, or further education, will not. ...

....Self-employed independent contractors are not entitled to holiday pay, sick pay or pension contributions. In contrast those categorised as workers have a degree of independence and can be self-employed but they are also entitled to limited rights including the national minimum wage and holiday pay. ...

....My partner began a degree in PE and education but never completed it, partly because the course wasn’t right for him. After travelling abroad and doing a series of seemingly random jobs, he is back in the UK and working in an engineering job, which pays minimum wage, is physically demanding and dangerous at times. ...

.... The government has recognised that voters are unhappy about falling living standards and have had enough of cuts. Deficit reduction will now play second fiddle to the need to raise real incomes, so expect a generous uplift in the minimum wage and an easing of curbs on public sector pay as signs that the age of austerity is over. ...

....The reality of working in a factory making clothes for Ivanka Trump’s label has been laid bare, with employees speaking of being paid so little they cannot live with their children, anti-union intimidation and women being offered a bonus if they don’t take time off while menstruating. The Guardian has spoken to more more than a dozen workers at the fashion label’s factory in Subang, Indonesia, where employees describe being paid one of the lowest minimum wages in Asia and there are claims of impossibly high production targets and sporadically compensated overtime. ...

....”. Interns in the UK are entitled to the national minimum wage unless they are under 16 or are taking part in a student internship for less than a year as part of a school or university course. ...

....Adrian Lowcock, investment director at wealth managers Architas, claims shares in Royal Mail could be hammered as Labour has threatened it with renationalisation. “Retailers such as M&S, Next, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons could be hit, too, by Labour’s promised rise in the minimum wage to £10 an hour. ...

....Deliveroo has been accused of running a campaign of misinformation and implementing last-minute changes to contracts in an effort to prevent riders from gaining better employment rights. In a key case relating to the gig economy, the Central Arbitration Committee is investigating whether Deliveroo’s drivers are independent contractors, as the company argues, or whether they should be classified as workers with rights to holiday pay, the national minimum wage and collective bargaining via a union. ...

....The TUC has urged the next government to take action to boost pay as it warned that borrowing to top up wages was poised to breach the record levels hit just before the financial crisis of a decade ago. Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, expressed alarm at the steady increase in unsecured debt – which excludes mortgages – and called for a higher minimum wage and an end to the tough pay curbs in the public sector. ...

...."The next government must act urgently to deliver the higher wages Britain needs for sustainable growth. They must boost the minimum wage, and end pay restrictions for public servants like nurses, firefighters and midwives. ...

....Thousands took to the streets of downtown Chicago on Tuesday night calling McDonald’s the “Donald Trump of corporations” and protesting low wages and sexual harassment at the world’s largest fast food chain a day before the company’s annual shareholder meeting. The protest, coordinated by pressure groups including Fight for $15, a union-backed lobby group calling for a hike in US minimum wage, plan a second day of protests at McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting in Chicago on Wednesday morning. ...

....“There is a mechanism for the individual to initiate this discussion where they want more flexibility, but not where they want less,” the CBI said. “A right to request fixed or more fixed hours should be introduced on the same basis as the right to request flexible working, as a more effective tool to address these issues, without undermining workers’ options or the enforcement of the minimum wage. ...

....It has since risen faster than both inflation and average earnings. The bar was raised further with the introduction of the National Living Wage in April 2016, bringing a 70p hourly pay rise to millions of minimum wage workers aged 25 and over. ...

.... An HMRC investigation followed, which resulted in a deal where the retailer, Transline and a second agency, the Best Connection, agreed to stump up about £1m in backpay to affected workers. It emerged at a parliamentary select committee hearing in March that Transline, which supplied about half the workers at Shirebrook, had failed to honour part of that deal, leaving scores of workers who were paid less than the legal minimum wage without the backpay they were owed. ...

....". Despite the strong performance from its international operation, the company described its Italian and French businesses as "challenging" and said it had lost out in Germany due to a rise in the minimum wage. ...

....The threat of legal action from the GMB comes after Uber drivers and the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, the trade body for London’s black-cab drivers, called for minimum employment rights and better regulation of private hire taxi operators including the US company. The GMB backed a successful employment tribunal case last year against Uber that ruled its drivers were not self-employed contractors but workers, and were therefore entitled to the national minimum wage and holiday pay. ...

....Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg has made a US Mother's Day call for the government to do more for working women. The social media giant's chief operating officer called for a higher minimum wage, paid family leave and affordable childcare. ...

....Twenty-somethings might enjoy the perks, says Clare Coatman, of trade union body the TUC, but they must be in addition to, rather than instead of, decent pay and conditions. "Compare the cost of buying a ping-pong table to offering a living wage, rather than a minimum wage, and you start to cut through to the reality," she says. ...

.... In its latest annual report, its directors said the “principal risk” to eCourier’s business was if employment tribunal judges ruled their couriers were workers, not independent contractors. Other major gig economy employers who together rely on tens of thousands of workers who do not benefit from sick pay, holiday pay and the right to a minimum wage are fighting similar claims that self-employed workers should have employment rights. ...

.... I am contracted to work 9-5 Monday to Friday, though the nature of my job entails I do small check-up tasks at home in the evening. In addition to this, I’m on a salary that’s little more than minimum wage, but I’m now doing work in the evening plus weekends. ...

....”. But a trade union representing riders attacked the changes as an attempt to cement the notion that riders are independent contractors when some want to have the status of employed workers with rights including the minimum wage, sick pay and holidays. ...

....Georgios Petropoulos, an economist at Bruegel, a thinkank in Brussels, said the final ruling may also influence the employment law battles that Uber is fighting on whether drivers should be given the same rights as workers. An employment tribunal in London ruled last year that its licensed drivers should be classed as workers entitled to the national minimum wage, sick pay and paid holidays. ...

.... . A Labour spokesperson said: "Labour's £10 an hour minimum wage is in line with reputable forecasts of the wage needed to maintain a decent standard of living by 2020 and put an end to poverty pay. ...

. Dramatic increases in the minimum wage planned by Labour and the Conservatives after the general election will put the jobs of low income workers in danger, a leading tax and spending thinktank has warned. ...

....A group of minicab drivers, many employed by Uber, have joined black-cab drivers and unions in calling for improved workers’ rights to be a condition of Uber being able to renew its London licence later this month. United Private Hire Drivers, which says it has 1,200 members and organised a go-slow protest blocking roads in the capital in November last year, is calling on Transport for London to insist Uber and other minicab drivers are guaranteed basic employment rights, including the minimum wage and holiday pay, under the terms of its new five-year licence. ...

....It said employees were paid the correct amount over the course of the year. However, those on hourly rates had sometimes seen pay dip below the minimum wage when they worked extra hours, technically breaking the rules. ...